Getting to watch a world i created in motion is a big one for me.

As someone who mostly GMs, I like that there is both the social experience of sitting down and playing with friends and the process of creating the campaign world and planning the adventures. They both appeal in different ways, but they're both part of the same hobby.

Seeing a table full of people having tremendous fun; wrestling scenarios from ideas

I actually like most gamers I've met. Not all of course, but on average, I enjoy the company of my fellow dice tossers. Or at least those crazy enough to let me GM!!!

Quote from: trechriron;1120118Let's say everyone that drives you bananas politically. morally, spiritually... just disappeared.

Oh fuck! Now I'm out of players!!!!

Seriously. Dude, you just nuked my table.

And that's something I love about RPGing. If vastly different people or even total strangers want to sit down and become a fellowship of rogues or heroes for the next 4 hours, RPGs make that shared fantasy possible. If the players want to step out of themselves and join a mighty band of brothers, you can do that, play for a few hours in harmony, fun and joy and when it ends, everyone can go back to their whatever life.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1120234...

Seriously. Dude, you just nuked my table.
...

YE GADS!!! :-D Good response. I was more considering external factors that might color someone's response to be politically motivated... I just wanted the gaming perspective.

I love running long campaigns. Getting to develop a world in play until its a real place.

Quote from: trechriron;1120118What do you LOVE about this hobby?

The ability to play "Let's pretend" in a more formal way.

I can play a Character that is not me, but is me, to see where the story goes.

Quote from: trechriron;1120118What got you started?

First year at University, one of the students on our Floor in the Halls of Residence said "Hey, I play a game where you can play the part of other people, sort of like being in a play, want to give it a go?", so we played Gringle's Pawnshop in Apple Lane and the next weekend I bought a copy of the RQ2 Rules and never looked back.

Quote from: trechriron;1120118Why are tabletop RPGs so damn awesome and why do you keep playing them?

They are a form of escapism.

Have you ever watched a TV Show or Film and shouted at the screen, "Why are you doing that?" or "Well, that wouldn't work, I'd have done this instead"? Tabletop RPGs allow you to do exactly that, to play the part of that character and try what you wanted to do.

Double Post

I like gathering around a table and having fun playing a game together. I like RPGs, in particular, because of the creativity and freedom that is involved. I like being surprised by how the game unfolds. I like the shared experience and memories created. Also, I've recently been DMing for a group of "new to RPG" players, and it's been cool seeing them embrace the game, especially those that weren't too sure what to do or how to act when playing the game.

Quote from: trechriron;1120118What do you LOVE about this hobby?

Being able to create a whole world or playing in one someone else created.

Quote from: trechriron;1120118What got you started?

My rich cousin got WEG Star Wars and I was part of his ginnea pigs.

Quote from: trechriron;1120118Why are tabletop RPGs so damn awesome and why do you keep playing them?

I get to pretend to be someone else living in a different world/time having wild adventures with my comrades at arms.

I get to build worlds where others pretend to be someone else. . .

Both of those are much better than just consuming fiction IMHO.

Quote from: trechriron;1120118What do you LOVE about this hobby?
What got you started?
Why are tabletop RPGs so damn awesome and why do you keep playing them?

I love that I can sit with my friends around a table and just shoot the shit, make up silly stories, roll dice, drink coffee and/or whiskey, maybe even burn a few blunts, and in general have a great time making our little Barbies and Kens fight for our amusement.

I went to California to stay with my dad as an exchange student for a year, and that's when I first learned about RPGs. A classmate of mine had an odd book with maps and obscure numbers, and I asked him what it was. As it turns out, it was Chaosium's Thieves World and it was for his D&D campaign... I didn't actually get to try playing D&D in the US but a few months after I'd returned to Denmark, a guy in my school knew all about D&D and set a game up. And that, as they say, was that.

As for what's awesome, apart from the stuff mentioned in my first paragraph, is that it has kept a surprising large circle of friends together for more that 30 years now. We play twice a week and have a great time.

That moment of magic when everything comes together. The best RPG experience I've ever had was a Traveller game where it was just character interaction between a human woman and a human man where the woman teases and scolds her boyfriend over breaking a dinner date while secreting out why he had to mobilize with the Imperial Navy so she could pursue her own in game goals. It just flowed. We weren't an overweight grey-haired white guy who was Refereeing an NPC and a skinny gay black man playing a female character, we were the characters in that moment creating the fiction of a nuanced relationship. I live for that shit.

After finally being forced (due to Covid concerns) to run my first ever online session, I can say that (even with literally the most cohesive best gaming group I've ever seen) it confirmed many of my ideas of its limitations.
But relevant to this topic, I'll say that it also reinforced for me that one of the things I love about RPGs is the social aspect of people physically coming together to create this shared world in a shared physical space.